


Wounds Deeper than Flesh

by Songspinner



Series: DMC Gen Week [1]
Category: DmC: Devil May Cry
Genre: DMC Gen Week, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 15:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Songspinner/pseuds/Songspinner
Summary: Some introspection about relationships in between/during scenes from the game.Part of DMC Gen Week on tumblrDay 1 Prompt: Injury/Healing





	Wounds Deeper than Flesh

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if I'll be able to keep up with the whole week's prompts, but here's day one!
> 
> I adore classic DMC too, but DmC could use more love imo. <3

“You both need me to defeat Mundus,” Kat whispered through a swollen lip, shifting to keep her weight off the arm she suspected was broken, still pulsing with pain. “And you need each other.”

_That’s right, Dante. We do this together, or not at all. And not at all is unacceptable._ Vergil couldn’t help letting a smirk creep onto his face, as Dante looked up at him from where he sat, perched on a wooden crate in the safehouse where they’d retreated. The loss of the Order’s HQ—and the whole Order with it—was a setback, to be sure, but ultimately irrelevant. He’d planned for this, years ago. His contingencies had contingencies.

The one thing he _didn’t_ have a contingency for was losing Dante. Kat was right—he wouldn’t be able to finish this if his brother walked away now. They were _so close._ He couldn’t let that happen. So…what was the one surefire way to keep Dante invested?

Kat, of course. He’d known from the beginning that bringing her in on this would help him catch Dante’s attention, but he hadn’t expected such a swift and forceful attachment. Much as it rankled to realize it took his brother less than a week to secure as much loyalty from her as he’d earned over years, he could use it to his advantage.

In the silence that stretched between them, he retook control of the conversation, extending the hand not resting on the Yamato’s pommel to offer Dante a hand up. Unnecessary, obviously, but the reversal warmed him. They were true equals, now. Nothing could stand in their way. “…she’s right. What’s done is done, let’s put it behind us. Victory is within our grasp.”

“…fine.” Dante clasped his gloved hand and stood, then pointed a finger at him. “But no more stunts like you pulled on the pier.”

“Of course.” He met Dante’s lingering, stubborn gaze with his own cool one, two identical pairs of eyes communicating volumes without words. A conciliatory gesture would appease him, Vergil thought. “Kat’s hurt. We should tend her wounds at least enough to make sure she has the strength to walk us through what she’s learned.”

Dante’s posture relaxed a bit, as he turned toward Kat. “You all right with that?”

Her lips compressed into a thin line, but she nodded, looking a little relieved despite her bold words a few minutes ago. It was time Vergil didn’t think they could really afford, but if it kept Dante on board… “Would you like to do the honors?” he said, directing his brother toward a door on the opposite side of the room. “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

“Uh…what, me?” Dante glanced between them. “I don’t know the first thing about first aid. Unless it’s anything like playing doctor.” He flashed Kat a suggestive smirk and Vergil saw her smile despite herself. A stab of irritation lanced through him. Would it kill Dante to take all this seriously for five minutes? This was Vergil’s _life’s work_ hanging in the balance. Their vengeance. Their family. He couldn’t follow the way Dante’s mood seemed to shift like a stray breeze—berating him for doing what was necessary (and, frankly, the only intelligent thing to have done) one minute, then flirting the next. He was distracted, clearly. Vergil would have to remove the distraction.

“Never really had to deal with that kinda thing before,” Dante continued. “Always healed pretty fast on my own.”

“I’ll handle it,” Vergil reassured him. “You should secure the perimeter, keep watch. Make sure no demon collaborators caught our trail.”

Dante’s eyes strayed to the gloves Vergil wore, like an unspoken question, obviously wondering whether they meant he had some kind of medical experience. Of course not; learning to treat injured humans would have been a waste of his time. After all, he healed just as quickly as Dante did. But it was hardly rocket science to apply a few bandages. “You got it,” his twin replied, grabbing his coat from where it hung over a ratty old armchair and shrugging into it as he sauntered out the door.

Vergil went into the bathroom to retrieve the kit from the medicine cabinet, but paused in front of the mirror to consider his reflection. Not so different from looking at Dante, in some ways, but in others… That defiant challenge he so often found looking back at him from his brother’s face felt like an uncanny valley, an expression he wasn’t used to seeing on a face that was otherwise just like his own. He spared a moment to try it on—call it a little experiment, he thought. He lifted his chin, drew his eyebrows low, set his jaw just so. Eerie.

He tucked the little metal box under one arm and left the mirror behind. They may have worn different expressions, but their blood and their history—their purpose—was the same. Dante would see that, when they defeated Mundus and took back the world that should have been theirs all along. He’d be a fool not to.

***

_Kat is in no state to do anything._ Dante’s words echoed in her mind. But she’d been through worse. The real blow had been hearing the two of them argue; it wasn’t like Vergil to get so heated over someone else’s opinion, and Dante… He still didn’t quite understand the stakes. He hadn’t been living and breathing this resistance the way she and Vergil had, he couldn’t have known all they’d sacrificed to get here. And yet, his worry was for all the people Mundus had hurt in his outburst, for the collateral damage their plan had wrought. For her safety. It was hard to fault him for that. She knew Vergil was right, that killing two birds with one stone had been the best move. But she hadn’t been so out of it that she’d missed Dante taking bullets to protect her out there on the pier, when she was too woozy and weak from pain to protect herself.

Vergil emerging from the bathroom interrupted her train of thought. He looked the same as ever: focused, confident, poised. But she’d heard him raise his voice not five minutes ago, defending himself against criticism. Since when did Vergil give a shit about criticism? “He’s just worried,” she said quietly.

“He shouldn’t be.” Vergil flipped open the kit and got to work, tilting her chin up with a finger to study the cuts and bruises on her face with those ice-blue eyes. “We finally have the upper hand. Mundus is done.”

_That’s not what I meant._ She tried not to flinch when he started disinfecting the places where her wounds had split the skin. His touch wasn’t rough, but she wouldn’t call it gentle either, and there was something strange in the way wearing gloves in what otherwise might have seemed like a moment of closeness, of kindness, distanced him from her. Had he changed, since they’d found his brother? Dante seemed to bring out a side of Vergil she’d never seen before. More prone to taking risks, and less present whenever his twin was elsewhere. “We’re really here, on the cusp of winning, just like we always planned,” she said. What would he do, she wondered, once it was all over? “Seems like it’s been a long time, doesn’t it?”

“It has been. A very long time.” He lifted her left arm experimentally, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth, wincing. …yeah, that was broken, all right. But a broken arm was a small price to pay for freedom. She would do her part until the job was done, pain be damned. Until humanity was free. “You and Dante seem to be getting along well,” he commented, watching her while he rummaged through the kit for something to use as a makeshift sling.

“I trust him.” She hadn’t meant for the words to come out so simply, so baldly, but she realized in that moment that it really _was_ that simple. She hadn’t had anyone to trust except for Vergil and her other friends in the Order for so long. And before that, hardly anyone at all. She certainly hadn’t told anyone but Vergil about…the nightmares, or how she’d survived them, before she and Dante had opened up to each other in the car.

“Is that all?” Vergil leaned closer to slip the bit of cloth under her arm. With his face so close, she could see herself reflected in the pale blue of his eyes. Battered, exhausted, but determined to see this through. His tone was businesslike, but why was he asking in the first place? Did he think she would get distracted by his brother’s ridiculous flirting?

“No, that’s not all.” She fixed him with a chiding glare. “I trust _you_ , too. And you can both trust _me_ to have your backs.”

The corners of his lips turned up with the hint of a smile, before he stepped around the couch to fasten the two ends of the cloth together behind her neck, forming a sling. She felt the latex of his gloves brush the back of her neck as he loomed over her from behind. It seemed oddly cold. “Yes, you’ve done well,” he said.

_Don’t worry, Vergil. I won’t let you down._ She slid her feet off the couch and stood, steadying herself on its dingy leather arm for just a moment before carefully making her way over to sit in front of the chalkboard leaning up against a few crates. “Go get Dante. I’ll show you how you can get to Mundus.”

***

Red. Red filled his vision, filled his world. His heartbeat was loud and erratic in his ears, and his own face snarled down at him as his strength left him, pain and numbness fighting for supremacy over his body. But it wasn’t his own face, not really. It was his twin’s. Did Dante really hate him _this much?_ Enough to kill him? Hadn’t they walked through fire together to get here? Hadn’t they saved each other’s lives? Hadn’t he given back everything his brother had lost? Where had it all gone wrong?

The chill of betrayal speared through him more brutally than Rebellion did in that moment. His blood seeped into the ground where he lay—his blood, the blood of Sparda, blood they _shared_. Did that mean nothing to Dante?

He thought someone spoke, but he couldn’t hear the words. Then, with a sickening lurch, Dante pulled the blade free, leaving him gasping for breath as his power kicked in sluggishly to start closing the gaping, bleeding hole in his chest.

…and then Dante had the nerve, the _gall_ , to offer him a hand up. As though this were a wound he could heal with such a meager olive branch. As though it could ever heal at all. But he took the hand, more because he needed it than anything—and that hurt, too, that need. He’d _lost_. Again, like he _always_ lost to Dante. In front of Kat, no less.

No, there was no way to repair the _real_ damage Dante had done to his heart today. His flesh might heal, but his soul never would.


End file.
